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[missinggeek]

If this only make one person smile, my work here is done :D #missinggeek #geeksquad #twitter #funny #doorbell (at The Missing Geek)

[missinggeek]

A WEEK AT THE GEEK – 25/05/2015 TO 31/05/2015

Friday Night Magic: Friday 29th May: Tonight’s format is Modern! I was taking Mono Blue Merfolk out for a spin tonight. Round one: Junk. Aether Vial was the pivotal card in this round, as I won both games when I had it and lost the game that I didn’t. Having an Aether Vial on turn one meant that I could cast Spreading Seas on turns two and three and use Aether Vial to get my creatures into play. Restricting his mana also meant the likelihood of seeing a Siege Rhino was slim and seeing a Wilt-Leaf Liege was likely never going to happen. With two Master of the Pearl Trident and one Lord of Atlantis in play, I was attacking for a huge amount of damage each turn and then anything else was a bonus; drawing cards from Silvergill Adept and still having access to all of my counter spells was massive. Round two: U-Tron. Again, Aether Vial was key. Slamming it down on turn one was amazing. Being able to just hold up counter magic AND get creatures into play gave me a huge advantage. Repeal on my Aether Vial was met with a Spell Pierce so I was able to untap and hold up both Remand and Mana Leak on the next turn plus get some creatures into play. Playing against a blue player was definitely handy as I was able to just turn off his Tron lands and power through a silly amount of damage. At one point over the round I think I had five lords in play. Not bad, eh… Round three: 5-colour Delver. Despite it being a Delver deck, I didn’t actually see one! Instead, I was confronted by two copies of Wild Nacatl and a Tarmogoyf, pretty much making it a Zoo deck with counterspells. By this point, I had a steaming headache and was feeling a bit peaky, so I was misplaying a fair bit and was struggling to pay attention. I just can’t beat a Tarmogoyf, especially as I don’t currently own any copies of Tidebinder Mage (I unfortunately shipped mine off when mono-blue of Theros/Ravnica standard lost its popularity). Needless to say, Master of Waves was probably one of my only outs due to my opponent not running Path to Exile but by this stage in the game, Tarmogoyf was too big and two of them just made it an impossible race to win. Round four: Bogles. Two uninteractive decks facing off against each other certainly wasn’t going to be entertaining. Both games featured my opponent loading up his Slippery Bogle (obviously) with plenty of irritating enchantments like Hyena Umbra, Spider Umbra, Rancor and Daybreak Coronet. I just couldn’t quite get into the game. Only being able to cast one counterspell per turn looked pretty useless against all of his one-drops and even using Aether Vial to get a creature into play seemed pretty bad because of the trample damage that was coming through. Not really sure if I’m supposed to win this match up because I can’t counter the Slippery Bogle or Gladecover Scout and can’t keep up with the vast amount of enchantments they play to buff them up, although it wasn’t really something I was concerned with given my splitting headache! If there’s anything you want to see included in the blog or if you’ve any suggestions for additional content then please e-mail me at [email protected]! 

[missinggeek]

A WEEK AT THE GEEK – 16/02/2015 TO 22/02/2015

NEW IN thisweek: 1. Star Trek Attack Wing: Ogla-Razik Expansion 2. Star Trek Attack Wing: Tholia One Expansion 3. Star Trek Attack Wing: IRW Haakona Expansion 4. D&D Attack Wing: Gold Dragon Expansion  Back in stock:  1. One Night Ultimate Werewolf One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a fast game for 3-10 players in which everyone gets a role: One of the dastardly Werewolves, the tricky Troublemaker, the helpful Seer, or one of a dozen different characters, each with a special ability. In the course of a single morning, your village will decide who is a werewolf...because all it takes is lynching one werewolf to win! 2. Cards Against Humanity A card game which involves a judge choosing a black question or fill-in-the-blank card. Each player holds a hand of ten cards at the beginning of each round, and each player contributes card(s) to the "card czar" anonymously. The card czar determines which card(s) are funniest in the context of the question or fill-in-the-blank card. The player who submitted the chosen card(s) is given the question card to represent an "Awesome Point." In addition, there are a few extra rules. First, some question cards are "Pick 2" or cards, which require each participant to submit two cards in sequence to complete their answer. Second, a gambling component also exists. If a question is played which a player believes they have two possible winning answers for, they may pay in an Awesome Point to play a single second answer. If the player who gambled wins, they retain the wagered point, but if they lose, the player who contributed the winning answer takes both points After each round, the role of card czar rotates around the table, and play continues until everyone decides to stop. 3. Libertalia In Libertalia, you must thwart the plans of competitive pirates over the course of three rounds while using cards that show the same crew members as your piratical comrades-in-arms. Yes, not only do they attack the same ships, but they employ the same type of ravenous scum that you do! Can you take advantage of the powers of your characters at the right time? Will you be outdone by a pirate smarter than you? Jump into the water and prove your tactical skills! 4. Fate Reforged Fat Packs Friday Night Magic: Friday 20th February Tonight’s FNM is 2HG Modern with a side event of Commander! Modern 2HG – a first for us here at The Missing Geek – was quite the event, with Affinity / Tron teaming up to take first place and Splinter Twin / Ad Nauseum coming in second place. Affinity proved to be too powerful for all of the other teams and the deck single handedly took out each opposing team every round. With all of the combo decks failing to go off (Storm and Twin being the main culprits) the tactic of beating face seemed to work the most consistently. The first round of Commander was a four way Pod featuring Rhys the Redeemed, Brago King Eternal, Gisela Blade of Goldnight and Damia, Sage of Stone. Everyone was hating on Rhys the Redeemed from the off, getting him put to the bottom of my library almost instantly, and then having my Wilt Leaf Liege exiled soon after! I ran out of gas pretty soon after and took a bit of a back seat whilst the other players took swings at each other. I got up to eight lands after a while and drew a Worldspine Wurm so I was hopeful that I could draw another three lands and cast one of these for the first time ever! Trostani’s Summoner refilled my board after an In Garruk’s Wake but deploying more threats onto a board which contained Visara the Dreadful and Xathrid Gorgon seemed to lead me down one path and one path only. Round two was a bit of a flash, with the three commanders being Rhys the Redeemed, Gisela Blade of Goldnight and Erebos, God of the Dead. Sorin Markhov coupled with Erebos, God of the Dead and another five powered creature took one player out almost immediately. I managed to get a Luminarch Ascension up to four counters quite quickly and got a load of 4/4 Angels onto the battlefield – coupled with Intangible Virtue, this could be over quite quickly. A Shamanic Revelation in my hand would have proved hugely useful to gain some life back and draw some cards, so Erebos, God of the Dead proved to be a bit of a pain for me! Getting pounded by intimidate creatures didn’t help me out whatsoever and I was dead to a couple of Extort triggers from Blind Obedience late on. Congratulations to our 2HG winners Shinners and Chris (1st) and Tim and Matt (2nd) and our Commander winners Matt (1st) and Bennett (2nd)! Next week’s FNM format is Modern! See you there!   If there’s anything you want to see included in the blog or if you’ve any suggestions for additional content then please e-mail me at [email protected]! 

[missinggeek]

A WEEK AT THE GEEK – 09/02/2015 TO 15/02/2015

Wednesday Night Gaming: Wednesday 11th February First up was Love Letter, the deduction game about sending a letter to the princess. The main game play consists of the simple draw a card, play a card but the main skill of the game comes from guessing what card your opponent has in hand. It is a great quick game that I would recommend everyone plays. Next up was the Wild West deception game, Bang, both the dice and card versions. One players given the role of the Sherriff and has the job of trying to find the outlaws who want him dead. He must do this without killing his deputies however, which is where the deception kicks in. The dice and card games both follow the same formula but are different enough to be worth playing and are enjoyable. Next in line was One Night Werewolf, but with the Kickstarter exclusive cards from the daybreak expansion. While its been a while since we last played this there is still enough about this game on the blog. The new character card though are pretty cool: The Prince who cannot be lynched, the Aura Seer who has a bit more information about what people did at night and another one which I cant remember, aren’t I professional. Friday Night Magic: Friday 13th February Tonight’s FNM is a Fate Reforged draft! Some pretty funky cards were getting passed around the table and I managed to get a look in at pod two, where a player was drafting four colour good stuff featuring Siege Rhino and Ankle Shanker (one of my favourites if you didn’t already know!) with a good amount of mana fixing and some crafty combat tricks. Pod one seemed to be all about GWx (or perhaps my eyes were deceiving me), with a Dromoka, the Eternal being the most solid card I caught a glance of with the usual suspects of Kill Shot and Defiant Strike lurking around too. A fairly stacked prize pool was also on offer with no fewer than four fetch lands! Congratulations to our winners, Pod One: Tim (1st) and Jon (2nd) and Pod Two: Connor (1st) and Daire (2nd)! Next week’s FNM format is 2HG Modern with a side event of Commander! See you there!   Fate Reforged Games Day: Saturday 14th – Sunday 15th February The Games Day format is Standard Constructed and the winner will received a beautiful Ugin playmat! Round one: Temur Monsters. I knew a quick start would help me seal the victory in the first round, as ramping into huge creatures like Stormbreath Dragon and Polukranos, World Eater would really hinder my chance of victory. A perfect start of Bloodsoaked Champion into Chief of the Edge meant I was hitting through for three points of damage and threatening at least six on the next turn, whilst potentially clearing his Sylvan Caryatid’s away to restrict the ramping. Merciless Executioner seemed to be awesome in this match up as without the Sylvan Caryatids, the only threat my opponent could deploy was a Savage Knuckleblade so I was able to clear a path to get in all the damage I needed. Game two was pretty similar with a hasty Savage Knuckleblade swinging in early on with the swing back much in my favour. Merciless Executioner again got the threats out of the way and the Raid ability from Bloodsoaked Champion helped me to pile on the damage. Round two: Red Devotion. Word of the success of this deck was doing the rounds so I was intrigued to see how I would do against it. Having played a Red Devotion deck myself during RTR/THS standard, I knew how powerful it could really be once it got going. Life gain seemed pretty key in the match up here, so I was confident that all the life I was gaining through Mardu Woe-Reaper and Harsh Sustenance would slow my opponent down dramatically. Getting stuck on three lands, my opponent was unable to cast the huge powerhouses in his deck such as Purphoros, God of the Forge and Fanatic of Mogis, and things got even worse for him when his Flamewake Phoenix hit the graveyard with no ferocious trigger to bring him back. The lack of lands was evidently favourable for me, being able to cast all my one and two drops with ease and swing in for lethal damage by turn six. A complete opposite in game two where my opponent just completely flooded out, only drawing a couple of burn spells to remove a creature – nothing could really stop the power of my warriors and I swung in for the win fairly early on. Round three: Jeskai Ascendancy. This match up was great for me in game one but post board, I just lose to Arc Lightning. The majority of my warriors are even trades for tokens, but with a Jeskai Ascendancy in play my chances of survival are significantly less. Despite gaining enough life to cancel out the burn spells found in the deck, the buffs from one Jeskai Ascendancy are almost always going to prove more lethal. A really tricky match up for me and despite what I thought to be correct sideboarding, I was still unable to come out on top. A 2-0 loss put a huge dent in my hopes for victory but one poor round could only mean the next one would be better!

Round four: RB Midrange. I love a good homebrew, but felt slightly bad for my opponent as he got stuck on lands throughout the duration of game one and majorly flooded out in game two. My opponent failed to find many threats at all and was certainly unable to source any removal for the creatures slowly beating his life total down. Gurmag Swiftwing proved to be a very underwhelming blocker and a Soulflayer with nothing delved away didn’t prove to be much of a threat either.  A pretty swift beat down, my warriors really put a shift in and took me to 3-1 for the day.

Round five: Jeskai Ascendancy. I feared the worst for this match due to my bad luck in round three, but I wasn’t going to let that put me off. I got off to a quick start as normal but Raise the Alarm and Hordeling Outburst just got in my way (again). Not being able to pump the toughness of my creatures was a real problem against these decks but if I elected to do so, the full on aggro plan perhaps wouldn’t work out in my favour. A turn three Arc Lightning wiped my board again and it was pretty much all downhill from there on in. The copies of Harsh Sustenance I was drawing were rendered useless and Merciless Executioner was only able to remove a token from the battlefield and even then, there were still four left to put a shift in and get my life total to zero in a flash. Top 8 play off: I was paired against mono-red aggro. Game one was a breeze, with Harsh Sustenance proving to be the key card in the match up; I was able to gain back enough life to negate the burn from my opponent and power through with my warriors for a hefty amount of damage. Games two and three weren’t to go my way though, as a key flaw in my decks’ mana base was exposed and left me in burn range on both occasions. No matter what play I made, I would’ve still been in burn range yet if the mana base was a little smoother then I could have perhaps survived an extra turn, gained some vital life points and swung in for the kill. If there’s anything you want to see included in the blog or if you’ve any suggestions for additional content then please e-mail me at [email protected]! 

[missinggeek]

A WEEK AT THE GEEK – 02/02/2015 TO 08/02/2015

NEW IN this week: 1. DC Deck Building Game: Crisis 2 Expansion The DC Universe is in peril… again! In the DC Comics Deck-building Game Crisis Expansion Pack 2, you will face some of the most epic challenges, events, and destructive forces in the history of comic-dom. As a Crisis Expansion you can expect co-operative gameplay and “Impossible Mode” Super-Villains for fans of the popular and critically acclaimed deck-building game. But you’ll also find new Super Heroes and new main deck cards for competitive players. Truly something for everyone! The Crisis cards are for co-operative play only. Players must team-up to overcome these challenging events. The gameplay you thought you knew will never be the same when these ongoing terrors hit the table. Work together to defeat all of the Super-Villains before time runs out! However, if you prefer to keep your deck-building competitive, there is a new set of SIX all-new Super Heroes and a slew of new main deck cards to keep your games as hard-fought as ever! Play Impossible Mode to make competitive play even more hard-core. The eight Super Heroes and 12 Super-Villains from Heroes Unite have been reimagined for the ultimate co-operative showdown. Impossible Mode Super-Villains are much tougher than their lesser counterparts. You’ll beg for mercy when you are subjected to their new First Appearance Attacks, and marvel at the rewards you reap for defeating them… which is not easy! This is not a standalone product. DC Comics Deck-building Game, Heroes Unite or Forever Evil is required to play. Contents Summary: - 61 Game Cards - 14 Oversized Super Hero Cards - Rules 2. Netrunner: Order and Chaos Order and Chaos, the third deluxe expansion for Android: Netrunner, pits three new subversive Anarchs against the bleeding edge ice and operations with which the Weyland Consortium intends to safeguard its most far-sighted and futuristic ambitions. Its 165 new cards (three copies each of fifty-five individual cards) amplify the high-stakes cyberstruggles between the developers at Weyland Consortium and those destructive Anarchs who would rather see the corporation’s utopian ambitions reduced to ashes than raised to the heavens upon the backs of the downtrodden. Accordingly, you'll find a slate of new identities, tech, and tools that enhance these factions' core strengths, even as they permit the exploration of new themes and decks. The Weyland Consortium gains a host of new, advanceable ice, as well as new strategies for protecting their agendas and assets while raking in bundles of quick credits. Anarchs, on the other hand, unleash a plethora of destructive new programs and resources that can tear apart anything a Corp can put together, whether they use them to further their humanitarian efforts or simply vent the pent-up rage of a disenfranchised youth. Finally, Order and Chaos presents fans of every faction with six different neutral cards that they can use to safeguard their servers, evade tags, and advance their economies. 3. Warhammer 40,000 Conquest: Gift of the Ethereals Lead your warriors into battle and inspire them to new heights of greatness with Gift of the Ethereals, the third War Pack in the "Warlord" cycle for Warhammer 40,000: Conquest! This sixty-card expansion offers a full playset of each unit, support, event, and attachment, continuing the main themes of the Warlord cycle and giving you the cards you need to conquer the Traxis sector. In this War Pack, you'll find more Nurgle units for the armies of Chaos, powerful Eldar Psykers, new battle tactics for the Space Marines, and more. No matter which factions you play, you’re sure to find new cards to swell your armies and revolutionize your warlord’s role forever. In addition, this War Pack introduces a new Tau warlord and his signature squad, creating a brand-new style of play for the Tau. Back in stock:  1. Firefly: The Boardgame Players begin with a ship, and travel from planet to planet, hiring crew, purchasing ship upgrades, and picking up cargo to deliver (jobs) all in the form of cards. Some crew and cargo are illegal, and can be confiscated if your ship is boarded by an alliance vessel. Travelling from planet to planet requires turning over "full burn" cards, one for each space moved. Most do nothing, but you can also encounter an Alliance ship, have a breakdown, or even run into Reavers. Completing jobs gets you cash. First player to complete the story goals wins. Wednesday Night Gaming: Wednesday 4th February We started the night with a game of X-Com, the board game based on the popular video game franchise. A fan of X-Com may expect this to be a tactical grid based board game where you each play as a human trying to take out the aliens on a mission. While I would be more than happy to play such a game this game focuses more on the base management past of the video game and gives each player a role with various responsibilities. The really unique feature of this game is its integration with an app. This app does several things but mainly it plays as the alien and gives players a time limit on their actions, all of which creates a great sense of panic.  Next up was Oregon, the Wild West game of building shops and train stations. The main mechanic of the game relies on the board being separated into a grid. Players can play 2 cards to place a Meeple on the relevant space on the board getting points depending on the building they place it next to. They could also choose to play a building by playing one card and the relevant building to put it anywhere in the row or column. This is another one of those games that is very hard to explain but if you ever get a chance I highly recommend playing it. Also I won so it goes on the famous “Best Games Ever” list! After that we had a quick game of Carcassonne, the game about building a medieval French city. Carcassonne is such a famous game that even if you only have a passing interest in gaming, you’ve probably heard of it even if you haven’t played it. It involves drawing tiles with roads, castles and monasteries then claiming tem as your own. They score when you finish them with roads being relatively easy to finish but castles being worth loads of points. The game ends when all the tiles have run out and, surprise surprise, the person with the most points wins. Friday Night Magic: Friday 6th February Tonight’s FNM is Standard!  Round one: Mardu Warriors. My opponent was very unfortunate in this round as she was struggling to find any red mana to get Goblin Rabblemaster on the battlefield and remove my threats with her burn spells. I was very fortunate to have an almost perfect hand, with a turn one Bloodsoaked Champion, turn two Chief of the Edge and a turn three Chief of the Edge! I was attacking for twelve points of damage on turn four and no amount of removal could stop the damage from going through. My opponent found red mana in game two and a Goblin Rabblemaster hit the board for a brief period, as the Bile Blight in my hand swiftly removed it from play. Mardu Woe Reaper combined with Chief of the Edge and Raiders’ Spoils meant I was just drawing cards for free (the life gain from Mardu Woe Reaper negated the payment of life from Raiders’ Spoils). Each of my creatures was attacking for at least three, if not four or five each turn which really pushed down my opponents’ life total.  Round two: Mono Blue. Knowing that I was up against a blue deck, I was fearing the counter spells! Luckily for me, however, this was more of an aggro strategy so there were fewer counterspells than I predicted. A turn one Hypnotic Siren provided a trade with nearly all of my early aggro and there were no real threats until a Scourge of Fleets on turn seven to return all my creatures to my hand. By this point in the game I was perfectly okay with this as I could happily recast them all on the next turn, with a Valorous Stance in hand to get rid of the massive body standing in my way. A pretty underwhelming game two for my opponent, where he just drew land after land and only being able to deploy a Master of Waves, which quickly got hit with Harsh Sustenance. After a quick start, I managed to knock his life total down to zero pretty quickly with the multiple buff effects from Chief of the Edge and Raiders’ Spoils; what a lovely combo!  Round three: Jeskai Burn. Again, a match up that could just sweep my board and profitably trade with my creatures. Prowess creatures such as Monastery Swiftspear and Seeker of the Way could prove to be an issue for my smaller creatures, although two Prowess triggers made them both juicy targets for Valorous Stance. Wild Slash seemed to be a pretty decent card in the match up, especially when I was on the play, as my opponent was able to leave up the one red mana and remove pretty much any creature on my side of the battlefield and lay his own threats. Harsh Sustenance felt like a key card in the match up for me, as I was negating the burn from my opponent by gaining life and essentially just redirecting it to him.  Burn spells seemed to elude him throughout all three games, except for the Wild Slash and a couple of Magma Jet’s, so my creatures stayed on the board and got in the vital points of damage needed for the win.  Round four: Esper Control. Again, not a match up I was particularly looking forward to as a board wipe is just absolutely devastating for me, especially with the Esper build as they can play End Hostilities on turn five and set up for an Elspeth, Sun’s Champion on turn six to set up for the win. I had a pretty underwhelming game one with the End Hostilities / Elspeth, Sun’s Champion combo coming to fruition as early as it could do. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver was ripping my creature-heavy deck to pieces and I was at the stage of drawing lands for four or five consecutive draw steps so I just scooped up my cards and moved on. Game two was much more of an explosive start for me, with a turn one Bloodsoaked Champion into a turn two Chief of the Edge and then onto another Chief of the Edge and Mardu Woe Reaper on turn three closing out the game pretty fast. Game three was a bit of a lucky escape, as my opponent had a hand full of white spells and kept fetching for blue and black sources. I was able to beat face pretty efficiently with my Warriors and without the ability to cast End Hostilities, victory was soon to be mine and a resounding 4-0 victory for me!  Congratulations to our winners Ben (1st) playing BW Warriors and Stu (2nd) playing Jeskai Tokens!  Next week’s FNM format is Fate Reforged Draft! See you there!   If there’s anything you want to see included in the blog or if you’ve any suggestions for additional content then please e-mail me at [email protected]! 

[missinggeek]

A WEEK AT THE GEEK – 26/01/2015 TO 01/02/2015

NEW IN this week: 1. Xcom: The Board Game In XCOM: The Board Game, you and up to three friends assume the roles of the leaders of the elite, international organization known as XCOM. It is your job to defend humanity, quell the rising panic, and turn back the alien invasion. Where the world's militaries have failed to stand against the alien invaders, you must succeed. To do so, you must make strategic use of the resources available to you. You must launch Interceptors to shoot down alien UFOs, assign soldiers to key missions, research alien technology, and use that technology to defend your base — all while trying to keep the world from collapsing just long enough that you can coordinate one final mission to repel the invaders for good. One of the more notable aspects of XCOM: The Board Game is the way that it incorporates a free and innovative digital app into the core of its gameplay. This digital companion will be available both as a downloadable app and as an online tool. The app's primary function is to coordinate the escalating alien invasion, randomly selecting from one of five different invasion plans. Each invasion plan represents a general outline that the alien commanders will use to coordinate the arrival of new UFOs, plan strikes against your base, and respond to your successes or failures as it seeks to conquer Earth. The app manages all of these tasks and heightens the game's tension as it forces you to respond in real-time. Then, after you move quickly to coordinate your response, you engage the enemy in the untimed resolution phase and feed the results to the app. Based upon these results, the app launches the invasion's next strikes. Additionally, the app teaches you the rules, controls the information that your satellites provide you, and tracks the progress of your resistance efforts, even as it allows you to enjoy the game at any of three levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, or Hard. The use of this app does more than simply streamline your play experience and track your turns in real-time; it also permits a uniquely dynamic turn structure. While the variety of game phases remains the same from round to round, the order in which you and your friends must play through them may change, as may the number of a given phase. As a result, while you'll want to know where UFOs appear before you deploy your Interceptors, the alien invaders may be able to disrupt your satellite intel and force you to deploy your Interceptors on patrol with limited or no knowledge of the UFOs current whereabouts. Similarly, you may be forced to think about the costs of resolving the world’s crises before you know how many troops you’ll need to commit to your base defence. The effect of the app is to immerse you deep into the dramatic tension at the core of XCOM: The Board Game, and it ensures that the game presents a challenging and cooperative (or solo) experience like no other. Just like the XCOM department heads that you represent, you'll need to keep cool heads in order to prevail. 2. Star Trek Attack Wing: Fighter Squadron Expansion 3. Star Trek Attack Wing: Alpha Hunter Expansion (Hirogen) 4. Star Trek Attack Wing: Romulan Drone Ship Expansion 5. D&D Attack Wing: Silver Dragon Expansion 6. D&D Attack Wing: Wyvern Expansion 7. D&D Attack Wing: Harpy Expansion Back in stock:  1. D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide The Dungeon Master’s Guide provides the inspiration and the guidance you need to spark your imagination and create worlds of adventure for your players to explore and enjoy. Inside you’ll find world-building tools, tips and tricks for creating memorable dungeons and adventures, optional game rules, hundreds of classic D&D magic items, and much more! 2. D&D Player’s Handbook The Player’s Handbook is the essential reference for every Dungeons & Dragons role-players. It contains rules for character creation and advancement, backgrounds and skills, exploration and combat, equipment, spells, and much more. Use this book to create exciting characters from among the most iconic D&D races and classes. Dungeons & Dragons immerses you in a world of adventure. Explore ancient ruins and deadly dungeons. Battle monsters while searching for legendary treasures. Gain experience and power as you trek across uncharted lands with your companions. 3. Star Wars: Imperial Assault Star Wars: Imperial Assault is a strategy board game of tactical combat and missions for two to five players, offering two distinct games of battle and adventure in the Star Wars universe! Imperial Assault puts you in the midst of the Galactic Civil War between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire after the destruction of the Death Star over Yavin 4. In this game, you and your friends can participate in two separate games. The campaign game pits the limitless troops and resources of the Galactic Empire against a crack team of elite Rebel operatives as they strive to break the Empire’s hold on the galaxy, while the skirmish game invites you and a friend to muster strike teams and battle head-to-head over conflicting objectives. In the campaign game, Imperial Assault invites you to play through a cinematic tale set in the Star Wars universe. One player commands the seemingly limitless armies of the Galactic Empire, threatening to extinguish the flame of the Rebellion forever. Up to four other players become heroes of the Rebel Alliance, engaging in covert operations to undermine the Empire’s schemes. Over the course of the campaign, both the Imperial player and the Rebel heroes gain new experience and skills, allowing characters to evolve as the story unfolds. Imperial Assault offers a different game experience in the skirmish game. In skirmish missions, you and a friend compete in head-to-head, tactical combat. You’ll gather your own strike force of Imperials, Rebels, and Mercenaries and build a deck of command cards to gain an unexpected advantage in the heat of battle. Whether you recover lost holocrons or battle to defeat a raiding party, you’ll find danger and tactical choices in every skirmish. As an additional benefit, the Luke Skywalker Ally Pack and the Darth Vader Villain Pack are included within the Imperial Assault Core Set. These figure packs offer sculpted plastic figures alongside additional campaign and skirmish missions that highlight both Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader within Imperial Assault. With these Imperial Assault Figure Packs, you'll find even more missions that allow your heroes to fight alongside these iconic characters from the Star Wars saga. 4. Camel Up! In Camel Up, up to eight players bet on five racing camels, trying to suss out which will place first and second in a quick race around a pyramid. The earlier you place your bet, the more you can win — should you guess correctly, of course. Camels don't run neatly, however, sometimes landing on top of another one and being carried toward the finish line. Who's going to run when? That all depends on how the dice come out of the pyramid dice shaker, which releases one die at a time when players pause from their bets long enough to see who's actually moving! 5. Smash Up The "shuffle-building" game Smash Up starts with a simple premise: Take the twenty-card decks of two factions, shuffle them into a forty-card deck, then compete to smash more Bases than your opponents! Each faction brings a different game mechanism into play – pirates move cards, zombies bring cards back from the discard pile, dinosaurs have huge power – and every combination of factions brings a different play experience. During play, Base cards (each with their own difficulties and abilities) are in play. You attempt to have the most power on the Base from your minions when the Base is smashed. Sounds easy? How easy is it when an opponent's Alien-Ninja decides to Beam Up your minions to other Bases - flat out Assassinate them? What about when the Pirate-Dinosaur player Full Sails in and releases King Rex to stomp your minions into the ground, or when the Wizard-Zombies use their Mystic Power to create an Outbreak, suddenly flooding minions onto the Base from the discard pile? Or what if you faced a Zombie-Dinosaur player instead and he created an Outbreak of massive beasts all at once?! When a Base is smashed, each player in first, second and third place scores points. Fourth place? Sorry, bro – try harder next time. 6. Boss Monster Inspired by a love of classic video games, Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game pits 2-4 players in a competition to build the ultimate side-scrolling dungeon. Players compete to lure and destroy hapless adventurers, racing to outbid one another to see who can build the most enticing, treasure-filled dungeon. The goal of Boss Monster is to be the first Boss to amass ten Souls, which are gained when a Hero is lured and defeated — but a player can lose if his Boss takes five Wounds from Heroes who survive his dungeon. Playing Boss Monster requires you to juggle two competing priorities: the need to lure Heroes at a faster rate than your opponents, and the need to kill those Heroes before they reach your Boss. Players can build one room per turn, each with its own damage and treasure value. More attractive rooms tend to deal less damage, so a Boss who is too greedy can become inundated with deadly Heroes. Players interact with each other by building rooms and playing Spells. Because different Heroes seek different treasure types, and rooms are built simultaneously (played face down, then revealed), this means that every "build phase" is a bidding war. Spells are instant-speed effects that can give players advantages or disrupt opponents. As a standalone card game with 155 cards, Boss Monster contains everything that 2-4 players need to play. Wednesday Night Gaming: 28th January First on the list was the quick card game, Red 7. The main idea of the game is to constantly be one-upping your opponents. This is done by playing cards either in your scoring area or as a new goal. If you are not currently doing the best at the goal in the end of your turn you are out of the round and play continues until there is only one player left. It is hard to describe the game so next time your down on a Wednesday ask for a game and you’ll get a much better idea.  Following that we had a quick game of Pandemic: The Cure, the dice variant of the main game. Anyone familiar with normal Pandemic will know the brutal nature of the game and they may wonder if it could keep such a nature in a smaller timescale. Well I can say for certain that it certainly does! All the characters feel unique, the board always feels like it’s got the upper hand and you get those great moments when two cities are at the point of outbreak and you have to choose which one you control, usually the wrong one!  The main part of the night, at least for me, was taken up by Formula D. This is a Formula 1 based risk management game where all your movement is determined by a dice roll. It may seem at first like the game is all luck, whoever gets the highest roll wins right? Wrong! All of the cars have 6 gears that each have a dice assigned to them with varying ranges that they could roll. You have to manage these gears while trying to go slow around corners, block other players and, as best as possible, not crash. This all leads to a very tense and exciting game that has tons of replay value.  We ended the night with a quick game of Those Pesky Garden Gnomes, the trick tacking game with a very gnomish theme. At the start of you turn you draw a goal card, this is your objective for the next round. At the end of the round you get given points for how much you missed the target, (golf scoring, points are a bad thing!) then draw a new goal and carry on. I’m not going to explain how the rules for playing cards and achieving the goals but just know that it is very similar to the classic game Hearts, if that means anything to you.  Friday Night Magic: Friday 30th January Tonight’s FNM is Modern!  Round one: RW Midrange. I was half expecting the same BWR Midrange deck I faced at the last FNM, but this time there was no black and more things to completely negate the damage I was dealing to my opponent with my Goblins. I got off to a pretty solid start, with Goblin Guide and Legion Loyalist providing a lot of damage in the first couple of turns, swiftly followed by a Goblin Chieftain and a Goblin King although neither of these really saw the light of day for too long. Ajani Vengeant was gaining my opponent some vital life points and killing off my creatures, as well as tapping down a creature with his +1 ability. Chalice of the Void for 1 meant my small hasty creatures (the aforementioned Goblin Guide and Legion Loyalist, as well as Goblin Bushwhacker) would be countered immediately therefore further preventing my chances of getting him down to zero. In game two, I had a Leyline of Punishment in my opening hand which prevented the lifegain to a certain extent, although when a Baneslayer Angel was slammed onto the battlefield alongside an Elspeth, Knight-Errant, I knew that the enchantment removal was on the horizon. Correct prediction from me, as the Leyline of Punishment soon hit the graveyard and the amount of life gained by my opponent greatly outclassed the amount of damage I could deal to him.  Round two: Mono black. Quite a simple match up for Goblins thanks to the fact my opponent had no Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek, meaning I could just dump my hand onto the table and win by turn four. The ideal hand in game one, featuring Goblin Guide, Goblin Bushwhacker x2, two Mountains, Goblin Chieftain and a Mogg War Marshal really piled the pressure on and it was a turn four win and not turn three purely because I had to sacrifice one of my tokens to Gatekeeper of Malakir on turn three. Game two was pretty similar, except I lost two creatures to Gatekeeper of Malakir and Geth’s Verdict and won on turn five; two kicked Goblin Bushwhacker’s on the turn, as well as a Goblin Chieftain and Goblin Guide, meant I was swinging for sixteen points of damage into an empty board.  Round three: Scapeshift. I was unsure on the match up here although I felt pretty confident I was able to really pile the pressure on considering the last game. My opening hand for game one was pretty slow, so I had to mulligan and my six wasn’t much better. I managed to get a solid amount of damage in thanks to Goblin Guide and a kicked Goblin Bushwhacker but struggled to get the last few points of damage in before my opponent cast a Scapeshift and did twenty-one points of damage to my face! Game two was pretty similar until an Obstinate Baloth came down on the opposing side of the battlefield, gaining my opponent four life and putting a huge blocker in the way of my tiny Goblins, not to mention that he was on three life before the Baloth was cast! This took him back up to seven life, so I managed to get him back down to three life; a Cryptic Command bouncing his Obstinate Baloth and drawing a card was probably the final nail in the coffin. I kept drawing land so my Lightning Bolt and Goblin Grenade’s eluded me entirely. Poor Goblins.  Congratulations to our winners Nick, playing Belcher, and Tim, playing Ad Nauseum.  Next week’s FNM format is Standard! See you there!  If there’s anything you want to see included in the blog or if you’ve any suggestions for additional content then please e-mail me at [email protected]!